I remember having a conversation with my dead grandmother a week after she died when I was around 6, on a toy telephone of all things. I used to see people who weren't there too as a young child.
The hyper-sexuality, impulsiveness and depressive periods kicked in around age 11-12, funnily enough as my parent's were going through a horrendous break up. My father had undiagnosed BP that he masked with alcohol; he ended up spending 3 years in the local psychiatric hospital. Being the early 90's kids were allowed to visit and I remember walking up and down the corridors with him, wouldn't happen these days!
My teenage years I suffered from depressive periods, and periods of extreme energy, poisoned with hyper-sexuality. Whilst I was a bright kid, my work suffered as a result, and though I achieved good grades, I could have done much better.
University was much the same, periods of depression and periods where I wouldn't sleep as life was so good. Again, hyper-sexuality reigned and I was an *** in the way I behaved towards women in that period of my life. I still wasn't aware that I had an illness though.
2014 I read an article, one of those '10 signs you may have Bipolar' kinds of article; it was a revelation, I felt like the article was written about me. I booked an appointment with my GP, the first time I'd been to the Dr's in many years so a big step. My sexual behaviour when hypomanic/manic had begun to really concern me by now, but I didn't know who to speak to, but now I felt I knew what the issue was I felt good going in to see the GP. I was wrong though. He was more interested in my family history of heart disease and spoke about that for the first 10 minutes, and then when I opened up about the mental health, and my concerns about my sexual and financial behaviour he told me that MH is a difficult thing and to keep an eye on myself. In hindsight I should have pushed for more, but I was broken by it, I felt like a fool for having gone in and left it at that. It was only 2 years later when I was arrested that I got the diagnosis, a little too late sadly.
Funny that this thread should pop up, I've been thinking about this topic a lot the last few days and how many things in my childhood/teenage years are attributable to the BP. Been interesting reading everyone else's experiences too.